


Functional

by tornyourdress



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Technobabble, genetic engineering angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/pseuds/tornyourdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can't remember the last time this happened - being called down for actual repairs. If anything's broken, he can usually fix it himself. You don't think about that too much." Broken things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Functional

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [Mosca](http://mosca.livejournal.com/), for the [DS9 ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/community/ds9agogo/58133.html).

"So what's the problem?" you ask, toolbox in hand and heart pounding. You are surprised when he actually directs you to a terminal rather than kisses you, as is his wont, though you're always afraid of being caught, being found out, and then, later, guilty, because you've let it happen again.

You can't remember the last time this happened – being called down for actual repairs. If anything's broken, he can usually fix it himself. You don't think about that too much. You commented once about how few systems failures there seemed to be reported for the infirmary, and he said quietly that he took care of most of them himself. Ah. Of course. Sometimes things were easier when he was just a naïve child, a prodigy in his chosen field and that was it. It scares you how much he knows, how much he understands. You wonder how he sees the world. You know it must be a very different view from where he stands.

You thought you knew him, and then everything changed. Even now you're not quite sure just how much of what you knew was a lie. He is continually surprising you, like now. An actual systems failure? A problem that he can't solve himself? You know that he values your – you hesitate over the word – friendship (and what you wouldn't give for your friendship, just friendship, to be all he wanted), but less certain of how much he values your engineering skills. If he values them at all. If he ever really needs help from anyone or if he just wants them to feel useful.

He could be anything he wanted to be, and he's still here, after seven years. You wonder why, sometimes. Think about him working alongside the medical greats at one of the Federation's top research facilities instead of on this godforsaken space station. Maybe Section 31's infiltration bothers him too much. Maybe he fears he'd end up like them. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Murdering an entire race to save lives. You can see him doing that. You can. You know he is moral. You also know he is willing to bend morals if needs be. Right, wrong, he can make these things subjective.

It's all subjective, isn't it? He lived a lie for most of his life. You still consider him a good person. An honourable person. Don't you?

If you hadn't found out, you might have – no, you can't think about that right now. You need to do your job. There's a war on, you remind yourself.

"The problem is," he begins, "that this isn't working. It's not doing what it's supposed to."

A quick scan with the tricorder reveals it's been radically altered from its original specifications. "Did you do this?" you ask, indicating the terminal.

He nods. "I installed bio-neural gel packs into the system to speed up the processing time. I had to, it wasn't working fast enough. With this, I can inject a small sample of a virus into the computer and within _minutes_ it extrapolates a paradigm for its behaviour in any particular humanoid system."

"Bio-neural gel packs? This shouldn't even be compatible with the rest of your systems." How does he have time to completely revamp an entire system and still carry out his ordinary duties? It'd take you weeks to do something like this, and you're not even sure that you could. The top engineers at Starfleet build systems like this from scratch; up until now you weren't sure whether modifying existing systems was even possible.

"I'm using an adaptive interface link," he explains. "It's been working fine until now. Do you know what's wrong?"

You pause, consider it, try to focus on the task at hand rather than the fact that you're almost one hundred percent sure that the two of you christened the terminal just next to this one only a month or two ago. Maybe longer, actually. Five, six months. Has it been that long?

Of course, you've been busy. The war. Keiko. The kids. These are the things that should come first. They have to. Keiko's your _wife_. She's the one you're in love with. You've been telling yourself that a lot lately.

"Doesn't that workstation over there serve the same function?" you ask, finally. "Is that still feeding in to the main computer?"

"Yes, but it's not nearly as accurate. It's standard Starfleet technology, it's not as specialised as I need it to be for my research."

Of course. Why bother going to one of the top research facilities when you can just revamp the standard systems instead?

You examine the readings on your tricorder again, visualise it in your head. "It's too advanced," you finally say. "This system is nothing like everything else in here. It seems to be working fine on its own, but you can't expect an adaptive interface link to handle this amount of data transferral. It can't do it. You'll either have to completely rewire every other system you have, or else slow down the data transfer rate. It's not going to work like this."

"Why not?" he asks quietly.

"Why not?" you say incredulously. He's a bloody genius, he shouldn't need you to explain why not. "Why not? Because it's too bloody fast, that's why not! Because it's not compatible with every other system in the infirmary. It just doesn't _work._"

He sighs impatiently. "But it _was_ working."

"Yes, but it was only a matter of time before it stopped working."

"Maybe I shouldn't have modified it at all," he says.

"Maybe you shouldn't have," you say. "Sometimes it's best to just leave things as they are, even if they're not the way you'd like them to be."

"I'm a doctor," he says. "I can't live like that."

There is a silence. You look at him.

He didn't really need you to explain it to him, you realise.

"I can't fix it," you say finally.

"I worked so hard on it," he says. "There's nothing wrong with the specifications, it _should_ work."

"Look, it'd work if the other systems were compatible. If you want to keep it like this, you'll have to rewire everything else."

"Could we do that?" He looks at you expectantly, hopefully.

"I'll look over this and get back to you," you say. It's a lie. You just need to leave now before you give in to him again and then regret it later. You wonder why you find it so hard to say no to him, even though you know you should.

Back in your quarters you pick up that PADD and open that file you've been debating whether to consider seriously or not. An application for a post at the Academy that you started to fill out, and then stopped, because you weren't sure –

But you can't keep giving him what he wants anymore, can you? You're never going to be in love with him, as decent and caring as he may be.

Later, when Keiko asks you what you're doing, you say, "Remember how we were talking about going home?"


End file.
